Agency Blog

2 Big Rivals Go Head-to-Head With Super Bowl Ads This Year

This year, President Trump purchased a 60-second commercial to run during the Super Bowl for a reported $10 million dollars. It didn’t take long for Mike Bloomberg to follow suit. It’s no secret both candidates have deep pockets when it comes to ad spending. Bloomberg has already spent nearly $170 million on television and digital advertising, according to Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm.

What I found most interesting, though, was the main reason Bloomberg decided to follow Trump into one of television’s most watched events: “The biggest point is getting under Trump’s skin,” said Michael Frazier, a spokesman for the Bloomberg campaign. Candidates have run advertising in the past during the Super Bowl, but not nationally. They typically buy key states, which makes a lot of sense and is definitely the more cost-effective approach, but it appears that money is not the issue here.

The Super Bowl ads are set to run during Fox promos because other paying advertisers don’t want to follow the presidential spots. They’re afraid of being overshadowed by the event. In my opinion, this seems like the perfect opportunity to negotiate a drastically reduced price and try to newsjack the moment.

Sometimes, you don’t have to spend millions of dollars to get noticed during the Super Bowl game. We all remember Oreo when the lights went out, FREE. Or how about the brilliant “If we made it” New Castle Beer campaign? They used a fantastic PR push in the days leading up to the Super Bowl to talk about the commercial they would have made, if they could afford it. (Google it, it’s great). My advice to clients and the team at the agency is that you don’t always have to have the biggest budget to get noticed.

Because I work in marketing and advertising, I look at one of the industry’s biggest days much differently. I typically see this time as an informal focus group. Most Super Bowl parties I go to are loud and exciting and almost no one pays attention to the commercials – except for the funny, celebrity-infused spots that you really just can’t ignore. But isn’t that what it’s really all about? So, if anyone has a few extra bucks left in their budgets and wants to roll the dice and follow the presidential spots this year, let’s get after it. Take a look at some of the creative work we’ve done in the past.